Issue with Maestro v1.8 (Part II)

A big thanks to Flex for their top notch customer support! My help desk ticket for my DOU (Dead on Upgrade) Maestro now shows solved. After a week at Flex my Maestro is on it's way back to me. I should have it tomorrow. My ticket does not explain what if anything was done to my Maestro and what version of software they loaded it with?? I'll assume it has been fixed but I need to know if I need to revert my 6500 back to SSDR v1.7 or stay at v1.8?? What's the path forward from here? Some advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again. (This is a new post because the previous "Issue with Maestro v1.8" has been closed for further comments)

@ Peter, there was no need to wait to praise Flex on their customer support! They did a great job getting my Maestro back to them for a fix. They paid for shipping both ways! I'm confident it will be back to normal once it arrives tomorrow. They deserve the praise.

Once you power up the Maestro it should show the latest version software on top of the list on the Maestro. If it is an older version than loaded in your radio it will prompt you to downgrade the radio (software for the radio is already loaded on the Maestro). If you did not uninstall the older version from your PC you can just launch that.

let us know if you have any questions. There are plently of people lurking here that can help.

Your Maestro was fixed by manually forcing the PICs on the controller boards out of bootloader mode and doing the software update on them We are adding logic to the PIC updater code to prevent the PICs from getting locked in bootloader mode.

The Maestro will come with v1.8.3 installed on it. We recommend that you do not downgrade the Maestro to a lower version since the software to prevent the stuck in bootloader mode has not been added to the SmartSDR for Maestro software and the same problem could occur if you downgrade.

I would assume they would rather send any
affected Maestro units back in one batch to be repaired, rather than in
drips and drabs. However, praise to FlexRadio for holding their hands up and
swiftly addressing the issue quickly with a return to base fix. Hopefully we
don’t have to wait too long here in the UK. I’m sure Klaus will have the units
repaired in due course.

I received my e-mail last night. It was much the same as your's "Flashed Processor W". There was not any more information provided. If they ship today, UPS has 2 day standard ground service between Texas and Kansas City. I should have it Friday. This will then be a 2 week excursion without my Maestro (The horror!). :-)

My Maestro has returned! It's back in the shack, up, and running V 1.8.3! It powered up first time and connected directly to my 5Ghz WiFi network so it looks like it retained my password. Thanks again to Flex for the great customer support! I'm taking advantage of the current 6m openings... QRZ de N3CAL.......73

Briefly, the issue that occurred is that the programming of an internal processor (happens to be PIC from Microchip) did not successfully complete. We had not seen this before in all of our testing and are still a little baffled as to how it happened. At any rate, we updated our startup software in the Maestro to check for this problem and, if found, reprogram the processors. In this case, the processor has the designation "W" in Maestro (there are six processors in Maestro).

In addition, we are now coding/testing a fix that will detect this issue during programming and work to fix it so the problem never occurs in the first place. We have fixed and sent back all the Maestros we received in our Austin office and will continue to fix the remaining few that arrive here quickly. A permanent fix with the upgrade should be released soon. Our office in Germany has the necessary tools to repair any units in the EU (and countries soon to be exiting the EU) so I would expect your local distributors have or will be forwarding your units to our service center in Germany for the same treatment.

I lived in London for a year so I got used to drinking WARM BEER. I always figured it was warm because English Publicans were too cheap to pay for refrigeration so they convinced the public that warm beer was drinkable.

Before we get too far in the debate, American beer is the worst mainly because it is targeted to housewives who pick up beer at the supermarket as part of their regular shopping. At least UK warm beer is targeted to guys who drink beer.

One benefit of driving to Friedrichshafen as I did, was that I was able to bring some cloudy German Weizenbier back with me and I just happen to be sipping one right now. A steal at Eur4,00 for a six pack!! German beer is allowed only four ingredients and no chemicals or preservatives!!

@Walt.. agreed the Imported ones have too many shipping additives which kill the taste.

@David.. We are back in France at the end of August... Our local grocery has great steals on Belgian, German and Czech beers (all better than USA Beer) as those countries are still in the EU. BTW.. loved the very civilized been garden in Friedrichshafen

I once did a software project for Electrabel (90% electricity supplier for Belgium) and my host there said that the USA uses 2x the electricity per-capita compared to Belgium. I said "How's that possible?" He said "It's all the ice you guys use." This was shortly after I was served a Coke with no ice in a restaurant.

@Howard, all tolled I spent about 6 weeks in Rotterdam as technology lead to a joint Nedlloyd Softbridge futures trading system. The application lead and I did have the occasion to take the train to Amsterdam and tour, which is to say drink, at the original Heineken brewery. That is an awesome drink. They simply don't know how to make beer over here.

Try asking for Ice in a drink anywhere in Europe.. Impossible and they look at you very funny.. if you finally get ice (glaçons in French).. they bring it in a bowl with only 2 or 3 ice cubes...

@Walt

Drank at that brewery.. also Guinness Brewery in Dublin is best part about working in Ireland and don't forget Pilsen Urquell beer in Pilzen Czech Republic...or the dozen or so great breweries in Munich....

OT...maybe we should start a topic on the community about where to get the best beer... now that would be really controversial and even the trolls for once might have something positive to contribute

Or even better.. How about Breweries on the Air Contest - to see how many breweries you can operate from - (I can start it off with Karl Strauss Brewery tomorrow lunch in San Diego) I bet Flex would love to sponsor the trophy

Don't forget Brussels... I lived two blocks from the Augustiner brewery in Munich and my toupee spun when I realized how good the beer in Belgium was. Not to say the beer in Munich wasn't excellent, just that the variety of beer in Belgium was greater than than what I was used to.

Agreed... Coke in Belgium... has to be against one of the many EU laws..that the UK is escaping... maybe the EU threatened to have the refrigerate their beer which caused the Brexit...

3 Weeks... Each country is worth at least a month on their own except Switzerland which is twice as expensive as the EU...

As you know we are always in France in June, Sept and Dec. Friedrichshafen 2017 is in July 17th - terrible time to be in EU as everyone is on holidays.- Hopefully they will move back to June in 2018...

Glad i wasn't an early adopter of 1.8 (mine wont update to it but just means i wait till the next release) but also glad i came back to good coms on what the issue was. Our customer (the US Navy) started having issues with some controll hardware.... Many months later the let us know there (after much prodding) was a memory change that affected the timing of the system. Meanwhile flex took the bull by the horns.